Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

RADIO BROADCAST I communicated with the General Electric Company and requested that we be given an opportunity to meet the directors on very important matters at the earliest possible date. As a result, a conference was arranged with the General Electric officials, this conference taking place at 120 Broadway, New York, on April 7, 1919. Admiral Bullard very ably presented the Navy's point of view to the conference and impressed the officials of the General Electric Company with the seriousness of the situation from a national point of view. After extensive questioning by Mr. Young of the General Electric Company he -j^^B became convinced that it would be ■ ' . unpatriotic for the Company to con f^^^B tinue its plans with the British l^^^l Marconi Company, and that there '^^^B was nothing for it to do but to ^^^m cancel the proposed agreement with the British Marconi Company, and it was due to his courageous decision and able presentation of the situation that Mr. Coffin, Mr. Rice, Mr. Stone and Mr. A. G. Davis and others of the directors present were convinced that drastic action was essential, regardless of financial considerations, on the part of the Company. After giving thorough consideration to the subject, the General Electric Company's representatives made the statement that they had not previously realized the importance of the matter from a national point of view, as they were a manufacturing concern and in the market for world trade, but that decidedly, they had no intention of subscribing to any plan which would prove inimical to the best interests of the United States. The Navy representatives suggested that the Company should go into the radio operating business itself, or make some arrangem.ents with existing American companies to handle the radio situation in a way that would guarantee American interests not only from a business point of view but also in the interests of the national defense. The plan agreed upon by the Company in the conference of April 7, 191 9, was that, if the General Electric Company obtained the British holdings in the American Company, they would absorb the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. It was subsequently ascertained, however, that the American directors of the American Marconi Company were in a receptive frame of mind as regards coming into the new company, as they themselves were aware of the fact that the major portion of the stock of the company was in British hands, and they frankly stated that the previous arrangement had never been quite satisfactory to them, that it had been looked upon with some anxiety and that therefore th6y welcomed some new arrangement such as the one proposed. As a consequence the General Electric Company arranged that Mr. A. G. Davis and Mr. E. J. Nally (representing the ^^.^^^ American interests of the American Marconi Company) should go abroad ^ _\ for the purpose of terminating the f t^^Ji pending deal for new apparatus, and ^^^bJ also to negotiate with the British K^^S' Marconi Company's officials for the g^p'^ purchase of their interest in the American Company, it being subsequently verified by their representative that the British interests were very large indeed. At this time we were still using the service that we had built up during the war and were doing a tremendous amount of business across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but we were very desirous of transferring other than the Navy stations back to private ownership as soon as the deal could be accomplished. Finally the General Electric Company was successful with the British Marconi officials and satisfactory arrangements were also made with the American officials of the American Marconi Company, and as a result the Radio Corporation of America was established. With a view to making it possible to market the vacuum tube receiving equipment, the General Electric Company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company exchanged licenses on their equipment, and the Radio Corporation of America came in on this exchange. In other words, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company with its subsidiary the Western Electric Company, the General Electric Company and the Radio Corporation of America all cross-licensed with one another in order to facilitate the sale of the American controlled equipment, this arrangennent being due partly to the suggestion of the Radio Division of the Navy. This arrangement was distinctly in the best interests of the public service, because it provided for the production and application in